Monday, January 09, 2006

Me Of Little Faith

I am trying to be encouraged by the few acts of bravery and honestly committed within the Senate by the beleaguered Democrats over the past several months, but I’m afraid they are going to have to show me much more before I allow myself to truly believe they will do something meaningful to stem the tide of neo-conservative and neo-religious infringements on our rights as Americans. This is why I will be spending a lot of time this week watching the confirmation hearings of Samuel Alito.

I hope that being home for the holidays has fortified our Senators’ resolve as they are going to need it to do the hard work ahead of supporting the American people and sinking this nomination. Sure, they have little chance of affecting any real change on the legislative side with their weak presence in the Senate, but they must continue to be a cog in the system that is threatening to kill our way of life. I realize that this language may seem a little over the top, but we are living in scary times.

The committee hearings will tell us a lot, but I have no doubt that unless Alito is sunk in committee (a long shot for sure), a widespread effort in support of a Democratic lead filibuster will be necessary. The Republicans took down the last nomination because Harriet Miers wasn’t a guaranteed 100% vote for the Religious Right. That should tell you all you need to know about Sam Alito. Watch the clip of Sen. Tom Coburn (courtesy of Crooks and Liars) for a peek into the mind of those who are throwing their full support behind Alito. Yeah, I want this nut job in charge on my reproductive health decisions.

It feels like the time between now and the next election is critical yet in a way, dead space. There is so much work to be done in fixing our broken election system, but until we see the results of that work, we won’t know how far we have yet to go. But the Alito confirmation is the fight in front of us and it is one we must win. With his out of the mainstream views on Presidential powers, we may not have an electoral process to fix if he is allowed to take a seat on our Supreme Court.

2 Comments:

neurophius said...

ScAlito demonstrated Tuesday that he is a sleazy weasel. He refused to say whether he still believes, as he said he did in 1985, that the Constitution does not protect the right to an abortion, or whether he still thinks, as he said he did, that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. On the very important issue, in our current environment, of executive power, he refused to answer a general question by Sen. Feingold about whether the president has the authority to violate the law, saying it was hypothetical and it would depend on the facts. Then he refused to answer a specific question, about warrantless wiretapping, because he said it was about FISA and might come before the court. So he expects the Senate to confirm him without a clue as to how he would approach current issues of Bush Administration abuses in the areas of torture, wiretapping, and so on, not to mention abortion.

I genuinely believe this entire "show" our government is projecting into our mainstream media is all about the "mother of all smokescreens".

Watch the money. Do you see Wall Street pushing any alternative energy as stock sales? No, neither do I.

Should we be insatiably curious as to why Wall Street is not on a great parade to sell lots of renewable, sustainable, energy self-reliant commodities?

www.financialsense.com

has some extremely important reading and there is an interview with William Engdahl but if it's too complicated to find on the financial sense site, you can listen to the interview on Mr. Engdahl's site www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net

We're a global economy and anything that sticks us into a deeper one-sided hole of "AMERICAN" will only hasten our demise.

http://www.hyperinflation.net

is another financial awareness test for US and it's going to be a big one from now on.